ProXPN has been on the VPN stage since 2009, but somehow I didn’t know of them until I had to write this review. When I got the name, I actually thought it was a typo error for ProVPN.
ProXPN is safe, and also a legit VPN service. It is not a scam because they will steal your money or credit card details. And you will definitely get the VPN subscription that you ordered.
But is ProXPN reliable? This ProXPN review will examine the VPN service to know if they are reliable and stable.
I still do not know what the “XPN” means, but I now know that ProXPN is a VPN service that lets you surf the web the way it was intended: anonymously.
ProXPN rightfully says that, more than ever, your freedom and privacy when online is under threat. They state that governments and ISPs want to record and control everything you do; and that even the shady-looking guy lurking around can easily grab your bank details.
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Note: Since you have nothing to loss, it will be a very good idea to register from this post so we can be able to assist you by getting in touch with them if you have any problem in the future. We have the power to force them into rectifying their faults. However, we cannot do anything if you try to trick the system. Just make sure you comply with their rules and regulations to make it easier for us.
The service promise to protect you from all online threats by securing your internet connection, and masking your location so no one can trace your connection and find out your real location; and also help unlock geo-restricted sites to give you access to your favourite contents.
Does ProXPN deliver on those promises and give what a modern VPN service should? This review will give you the information needed to answer that question by thoroughly examining everything about ProXPN.
ProXPN offers two accounts for users – a free account (called Basic Account) and a paid account (called the Premium Account).
I will touch on the basic account later. The premium account has three packages which are similar in features, and different only in billing period. ProXPN premium plan has three billing option – every 3 months, every 6 month, and every 12 months.
The three months package cost $29.95 which breaks down to $9.98 per month. The 6 months package cost $49.95 which breaks down to $8.33 per month to give a cost saving of 17%. The 12 months package is ProXPN’s best value deal. It cost $74.95 which breaks down to $6.25 per month to giv a cost saving of 37%.
ProXPN follow the pricing model in the industry – that is, offering lower prices with longer term deals.
However, ProXPN’s pricing works against them in at least two ways. First, in a very surprising move, ProXPN does not have a one month package; and the one month deal is offered by almost every VPN service in the market. As a result, users who would want to hold VPN protection for just about a month will have to beyond ProXPN. Secondly, ProXPN does not have any package more than 12 months; while there are services that offer 24 months and 36 months packages. Such longer deals hold the advantage of being massively discounted; and as a result, services who offer them have ‘best value’ deals as low as $3.00 which is less than half of ProXPN’s.
Overall ProXPN’s prices do not give them any advantage over the competition; they are definitely not among the expensive services, but they also do not feature among the inexpensive services.
ProXPN supports the regular payment methods – credit/ debit cards and PayPal. They currently accept only Visa and Master cards. These payment methods offer little in way of anonymity. They entail submission of a ton of personal data. Many VPN services respond by allowing a range of payment methods including anonymous payment methods of bitcoin and other crypto currencies. ProXPN supports only bitcoin.
If alternate payment methods is a concern of yours, ProXPN dues not offer a lot of options. But since they support bitcoin, the service will appeal to privacy conscious users who wouldn’t be comfortable with submitting the personal information that the other billing operations will require.
Some VPN services are rolling out free plans so that everyone would have an opportunity to be VPN protection. ProXPN responded with the basic account.
The ProXPN Basic Account is completely free for life; and like every free account is limited. According to ProXPN, it is “without a few extra bells and whistles“. The question that need answers is: how many bells and whistles does is it without? A better question will be: even without these bells amd whistle, does the account still offer adequate VPN service?
The one highlight of the Basic Account is that it offers the same level of security as the Premium Accounts. ProXPN will also point out that there is no data cap on the basic plan; but as will soon be established the unlimited bandwidth allowed is almost meaningless.
The basic plan is restricted to one server location (in the United States), which means it will always be crowded and performance will be poor. Then, speed through the VPN is limited to 300kbps; so even if by some stroke of luck the one server isn’t crowded, you will still get intolerable speeds. You are also not allowed to connect to peers for torrenting activity; with the speed you get, P2P would have been sufferable anyway. Also, not all ports are open. What good does the unlimited data offered do?
If you need to use the VPN basic plan on your mobile devices, you just can’t because iOS and Android are not supported. You also should not need assistance; because support is not extended to basic account holders.
The basic plan lacks just too many bells and whistles, as a result it is barely usable.
ProXPN do refunds. They have a 30-days money back guarantee which allows you to request a refund of your payment if you are not satisfied with the VPN service. Given that the free plan is too limited and will not allow you to fully experience the service; this money back guarantee is a means to experience the full service free of charge because you get access to all the features of the Premium plan.
The best part of ProXPN’s 30 days guarantee is that there are no hidden clauses such as bandwidth restrictions. It’s a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee. This scores points tor ProXPN, because many services with guarantees include clauses where they will not refund payment if the user exceed certain bandwidth. It is also worth noting that the 30 days allowed is one of the longest in the industry. You”ll be hard pressed to see another service offering a money back guarantee (especially an unlimited one) of more than 30 days.
To activate it and get a refund: first, you have to cancel your subscription by going to the client area and raising a support ticket to cancel; then you have to raise another ticket to request the refund. ProXPN process refund request quickly; you’ll have your money back in 5 – 7 working days.
ProXPN is compatible with Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android. However, they have custom apps for only Windows PCs and MacOS. Though there are no apps for iOS and Android, the service provides detailed manual setup instructions along with screenshots. Unfortunately, ProXPN cannot be used on Linux or routers (not even the DD-WRT and Tomato routers).
I will like to see ProXPN develop dedicated apps for mobile devices, and extend support for other platforms. There are services that can be used on virtually all operating sysytems including smart TVs and game consoles.
ProXPN do not support multiple connections. This means that you cannot connect two or more devices using one ProXPN account. If you need VPN protection on your phone, home PC, and office PC, you have to look beyond ProXPN.
This is a big disadvantage of the ProXPN service. There are services that offer 5 or more simultaneous connections, and some even offer unlimited simultaneous connections.
To get the VPN, first you’ll have to sign up and create and account (which requires providing a valid email address), then download and install the client. The whole process is simple and will be over in a few minutes. When you launch the app, you will be prompted to login with the account information you created.
The interface is simple, and even the new user will have no problems with it. On the PC app, the interface features four tabs – General, VPN Guard, Location and Log. General is where you connect/ disconnect; it is also where you select your server location, and protocol, and set the app to start at system start up. The “VPN Guard” tab is where you enable the kill switch; the Location tab enables you visualize your connection by showing you on a world map where you are connected; while the Log tab allows you to view detailed information about their session.
ProXPN is excellent at unlocking many geo blocked sites for streaming which includes HBO and Fox Go. But when it comes to the Netflix, ProXPN failed. This is not very surprising because Netflix have taken drastic steps to block VPNs, and many services cannot give access to Netflix’s contents. The service also could not unblock Hulu, BBC iPlayer and many other streaming giants.
If you’re like me that rates a VPN’s streaming capabilities with access (lack thereof) of Netflix, then ProXPN cannot be considered an ideal VPN for streaming.
ProXPN supports P2P activity. They clearly advertise that their basic plan (free plan) cannot be used to torrent, but the premium plan can. Because torrenting can easily put one on the wrong side of the law, individuals seek VPN to torrent safely and anonymously, and some VPN services run away to avoid liability. But with ProXPN, you can torrent with peace of mind. However, as we will soon see, ProXPN has few servers, and fewer still P2P servers. Consequently, P2P will be crowded, and performance will be affected.
ProXPN has only a handful of servers in 18 locations in 13 countries (five server locations is the U.S., and one each in twelve different countries). ProXPN’s server network will definitely not win the VPN service any awards; there are services that operates thousands of servers in more than 50 countries. ProXPN’s server will defintely keep you anonymous; but the more servers there are, the more options for spoofing location, and the more anonymity is enhanced.
However, it is remarkable that ProXPN’s relatively small server network has a wide geographical distribution. It touches almost every region of the world which include North America (U.S. and Canada), Europe (Netherland, the U.K., Sweden, Iceland, France and Switzerland), South America (Costa Rica), Oceania (Australia), and Asia (Singapore, Japan, and China). Africa and the Middle East are the only regions missing from the network, but this is not uncommon with VPN networks. This widely distributed network ensures that anywhere in the world that you might travel to, you will always see a nearby ProXPN server for optimal connection.
ProXPN supports only the OpenVPN, IPSec, and PPTP VPN protocols. Some users might not like that a range of protocols is not supported; but most will be okay since the OpenVPN is supported. The OpenVPN is the most secured of the bunch; it is usually recommended by all privacy experts because it is open source, have been picked for vulnerabilities, but none has been found. ProXPN shows that they are commited to ensuring users’ privacy by supporting this secure protocol even on the free (basic) plan.
For users who would want to leverage on the speed of the PPTP, ProXPN also support the protocol. However, it is available only to paid users on the premium plan. It should be noted that the PPTP is known to be insecure.
In terms of encryption, ProXPN explain that on the OpenVPN, they use a 2,048-bit key enabling a 512-bit tunnel.
I have seen VPN services describe their encryption levels as military-grade, bank-grade, top-notch and even unhackable; this in reference to the AES 256 encryption which has actually proven unhackable. While every security focused services (even non VPN organization like banks) are using the AES 256 encryption; ProXPN use the 512-bit encryption standard. As a result, unhackable cannot be used to describe ProXPN’s encryption level. The 512- bit encryption is vulnerable, and it has been shown that it can be cracked in less than 6 weeks.
ProXPN’s encryption standards pose a problem to users; as it doesn’t fully guarantee the security of users’ online data.
You might have heard the saying: “a living dog is better than a dead lion”. This is because, in a dead state, all the strength, courage and whatever fine attributes the lion possessed is useless. VPNs can be said to be alive when they are up and running, and dead when disconnected. Sometimes they can suddenly lose connection during an active browsing session. When a VPN connection dies like that all the encrypting and location masking that the service had provided becomes useless, because your now-unencrypted data and real location are suddenly exposed to anybody watching.
The kill switch is featured in VPN services to ensure that your security is intact all the time; it accomplish this by killing (cutting off) internet connection when the VPN suddenly dies, ensuring that you do not continue to transmit data online without the VPN up and running.
ProXPN’s “VPN Guard” is a kill switch feature that ensures you are protected all the time including when the service’s connection suddenly dies. ProXPN’s kill switch is an application kill switch which allows users to elect applications to automatically shut down if connection to the proXPN VPN is dropped for any reason. Also, in ProXPN basic plan limiting fashion, the kill switch is only available on the premium plan.
Security Leaks include DNS leak, WebRTC leaks and IPv6 leaks. Basically, these leaks compromise privacy by revealing a user’s real IP and/ or visited websites. Any serious VPN should adequately protect against security leaks. ProXPN effectively protected against these leaks; with this service, you can be sure that you will not leak your DNS or IP.
About their logging policy, the company make statements like: “proXPN = NO LOGS” and “Our logging policy is quite simple, we don’t log anything. We don’t log any activity of our users at any time”
Such statements are all too common from VPN services; but they do not give the assurances that they used to because certain VPN services spewing the same no-log lines have been found to reveal users data to authorities. How could they reveal such data if they had not kept logs? Your guess is as good as mine.
One way we validate the no-logs claim of VPNs is to comb the fine prints of their privacy policy. Almost all the time, the fine prints are usually revealing, helping us know what information the service collects and how users’ privacy is affected.
ProXPN’s privacy policy is so short, it is actually non revealing. It did say that ProXPN does not keep logs of activity, connection times, or originating IP Addresses. With no data caps on any of their plans, one of the main reasons why some services collect session logs is eliminated. The policy also state that they collect sign-up information, (email and password) as well as payment details (name and billing period); but this is not just ProXPN, it is almost standard practice among VPNs.
To the part about the privacy policy being non-revealing; I had wanted to see an explanation of how the service identify abuse on the system, and something about the VPN’s policy on cookies and other tracking technologies. Also, in the ProXPN’s FAQs section, to the question: “How long do you keep my data?” The answer given was: “No more than ten (10) days“; and the answer was followed by a link to their privacy policy. However, the privacy policy does not reference any such 10 days data storage.
ProXPN is headquartered in the Netherlands. ProXPN’s Netherland location is a bitter-sweet story for most privacy conscious users.
The sweet part is that the Netherlands is not considered an anti-privacy country as some of her European counterpart. This is because the European Union (EU) data collection legislation has been effectively scrapped in Netherland. Courts in the Netherlands have ruled that while the EU data retention drive helps solve crime it also breaches the privacy of telephone and internet users. Therefore, Netherland is not subjected to the mandatory data retention laws in force in the U.S. and some other European countries. Users can be rest assured that the service will not be forced to keep logs that would compromise their privacy.
The bitter part is that Netherland is a member of a surveillance alliance. The alliance started off as the Five-Eyes comprising of five countries, and grew to the Nine-Eyes when Netherland and three other countries joined. Today, it has grown to 14 countries across the globe, and they have many more sympathizers. The alliance is basically an agreement between the member nations to collect (read: spy) and share surveillance data. If you concerned about a spy network targeting you and moving your profile around the world, then ProXPN might not be ideal.
ProXPN is not one of the industry’s speedster, but it definitely held its own. The speed tests was done by measuring performance without a VPN with performance when the ProXPN VPN was connected. Generally, using a VPN drop network speed, but the good performing VPNs will have indecipherable or tolerable drop in speed. ProXPN’s speed drop wasn’t indecipherable, but tolerable.
On the average, ProXPN dropped download speeds and upload speeds by 42% and 58% respectively. This sit at just above average speeds in the VPN industry; and will enable you do virtually anything.
ProXPN supports an e-mail service, a phone service, and an active Twitter channel for users who need to directly contact the company for assistance.
This is what ProXPN says about their customer support: “We take all inquiries and support requests very seriously, so feel free to contact us day or night with any questions or technical issues you may have“.
That is not just sales-speak. Unlike many VPN services, ProXPN’s support staff is available 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week. Also, where some services will take forever to respond to your e-mail inquirers, ProXPN’s response timeliness is an impressive 0 – 2 hours. The Twitter service also has very fast response time (a few minutes); and needless to say, the phone service gives you feedback in real time. While the 24/7 phone service is fine, to users outside the U.S., the cost of long distance calls could make the support service prohibitive.
This is where a live chat service would be useful. A live chat would give users speedy instant responses (just like the phone service), but without any cost. Unfortunately, ProXPN do not have live chat support service.
ProXPN also has the regular self help resources such as FAQS, guides, and knowledgebase. The guides are remarkably detailed, and comes with screenshots, that would enable users set up the VPN on the supported devices. FAQS and knowledgebase answer a host of questions (both generic and technical) about the service.
One could point out that ProXPN has a simple client, has okay speeds, and gives security by including a kill switch feature and plugging security leaks; while another would point out that ProXPN is quite pricey, has little advanced features, has limited device support, does not have mobile apps, does not support multiple device connections, and does not give Netflix.
In fact, ProXPN is one of those VPN services that make you prefer sitting on the fence to moving to either side.
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I signed up for proxpn 3 years ago for about 10 minutes then switched to a free account, now every year they still try to charge my card. Their phone number is disconnected, their address changes every year and they never answer support calls.
DO NOT USE PROXPN, THIS SERVICE IS A SCAM!!!